


Busman's Holiday

by DarkAndDeep



Category: The Invisible Man (TV 2000)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 05:38:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18067613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAndDeep/pseuds/DarkAndDeep
Summary: Darien's vacation doesn't quite go as planned.





	1. Busman's Holiday

_"An old Chinese proverb says 'it's better to light a candle than curse the_   
_darkness'. In other words, deal with your situation, your troubles, your_   
_gland in the brain. It's good advice. But after meeting Leila I kind of_   
_wondered, what's wrong with the  darkness?" -- Darien Fawkes, 'Beholder'_

 

Darien Fawkes sat in comfortable silence on the rocks overlooking the Pacific, contemplating Chinese proverbs and watching the waves break against the shore.  The sun had just dipped beneath the horizon, and now the clouds were glowing crimson and orange in breathtaking splendor.  He wished Leila could see it.

"Describe it to me," Leila asked, suddenly.

"What?"

Leila Bach flashed the incandescent smile that companies paid big money to have shining behind their products. "The sunset you're sighing over so eloquently.  I wasn't always blind, you know...I remember sunsets.  Describe it for me"

"Leila," Darien shook his head in exasperation, "You are wasted in modeling.  You should really take up a career as a mind-reader."  Leila's smile got a fraction wider and acquired faint air of mischief.

Darien attempted to describe the brilliant colors and glowing clouds for her, but didn't really feel he'd done the experience justice.  It was over too quickly, and very soon the sky was dark.  The breeze that had been warm at their backs all afternoon turned suddenly chilly, a subtle reminder that, even in balmy San Diego, summer couldn't hang on forever.

"So, you're going back to work next week, full time?" Leila asked, as they walked back to his car.

"Yep.  The docs say my eyes are back to about 90%.  Good enough to drive legally, though my peripheral vision is still a little cloudy.  Claire thinks I'll be completely recovered within a week or so.  How about you?  Heading off to a photo shoot in...Maui, was it?"

"Yes, tomorrow morning.  I'm looking forward to it.  I think a little distance will be good for me.  Too many things around here remind me of Claude...I just need to get away for a while.  Not that I haven't enjoyed spending time with you, but..."

Darien nodded, understanding.  "Yeah, I was actually thinking the same thing.  I've been stuck here in town for over a month.  And, yes, it's been a more pleasant month with you to keep me company, but now that I can travel again, I'm going take these last few days and fly up an visit my aunt.  Treat her to a kind of belated Thanksgiving thing before I get caught up in work again.  I promised her a while back that I'd visit more often; guess it's time I started following through."  He chuckled softly at the thought.  "I'm sure it'll shock the hell out of her."

 

Two days later, Darien was walking down the familiar main street in Cold Springs, watching his breath condense in the cold mountain air.  It might still feel like summer in San Diego, he realized, but here in the Sierra foothills, winter had already arrived.  There was no snow on the ground yet, but it could start any day.

Lost in thought, he didn't hear the footsteps approaching behind him and started a bit when a finger tapped him on the shoulder.  Turning, he found himself looking into the familiar face of Sheriff John Pizzetti, and it didn't look happy to see him.

"John," Darien acknowledged warily, sensing this wasn't the right time to revert to his old nickname, 'Pizza'.  They had been friends as kids, but now that might not matter.

"Fawkes," the sheriff replied flatly, with no expression.

"Gonna throw me back in the clink?"  Darien inquired, only half joking.

The sheriff frowned.  "Don't tempt me.  I was _this_ close to issuing a warrant after you broke out, but then your friend treated us to that little 'parapsychology' show of his.  Couple of days later I got a firm 'hands off' order down through the chain of command.  You got friends in high places these days?"

"Strange places, more like."

"I'll bet.  I'd still love to know how you busted out, though, so I can keep it from happening again.  Prison breaks don't look good on my record."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you.  I wouldn't worry about repetitions, though; it was just a ... freak thing."

Pizzetti frowned, remembering car doors opening and sirens blaring seemingly by themselves.  "That friend of yours...little bald guy...he some kind of stage magician?  He sure had me fooled there for a while."

"Not quite, but Hobbes does have a few tricks up his sleeve."  Darien smirked, looking forward to relating this conversation to his partner.  Hobbes would get a kick out of it.

Pizza finally responded to the smile with one of his own, shaking off his pique.  "So, what're you doing back in town, Fawkes?"

"Came to visit Aunt Celia.  I didn't make it up for Thanksgiving, so I'm treating her to a big picnic lunch up at the old cabin before I have to head back.  I was just on my way over to the store for supplies."

"Ah, that sounds nice.  Well, I better be getting back to work.  Try not to cause any traffic accidents this time, ok?"  Pizza teased.

Darien snapped to attention, gave a mock salute, and said, "Do my best, sir!" 

The sheriff shook his head, smiling slightly, and walked away.  Darien watched his back retreat for a moment, smiling at their private joke.  He and his old pal Pizza might have taken their childhood game of cops and robbers to extremes as adults, but there was still something left of that old teenage screw-up camaraderie they'd once shared. 

Turning again, he continued on towards the small town's one and only grocery store.  Grabbing one of the small carts lined neatly out front, he walked in, nodded to the clerks who were standing around gossiping, and started down the first aisle.  The clerks stared after him; it wasn't often that they saw an unfamiliar face in here, especially with tourist season so long over.  One of the young women whistled softly under her breath as she watched the stranger walk away, then turned back to the others and raised her eyebrows suggestively. 

Darien heard stifled giggling from behind him as he started through the aisles, but was lost in his own thoughts and paid it no attention.  Proceeding from one end of the store to the other, he filled his cart with more food than he and his aunt could eat in a week, much less an afternoon.  He planned to go all out with this feast, to make up for all the Thanksgivings he'd missed in the past several years.

He nodded to a girl who was pushing her cart the other way down the aisle.  She couldn't be much more than sixteen, he thought.  Probably just got her license, and now her mom was sending her on errands.  Liberty and responsibility, he mused. Not a concept he'd had much use for at that age. 

He and the girl seemed to have the store mostly to themselves.  Many people in town would be sitting in church at the moment, and most of those who weren't so inclined would still be in bed.

As he approached the end of the last aisle, reading over his list trying to figure out what he'd forgotten, Darien suddenly heard angry shouting and panicked voices rising from the front of the store. 

_What the hell?_ Leaving the cart behind, he jogged quietly back to the front and peered around the corner. 

Four large men were standing behind the check-stands.  They all wore dirty camouflage fatigues and sported face paint that disguised their features fairly effectively.  And every one of them was pointing a semi-automatic weapon at the terrified employees.

Darien drew in a breath.  "Oh, crap..."


	2. Vanishing Act

"Hobbes!" The Official shouted from his office doorway.

"Yeah, boss?" Bobby replied casually, pausing at the end of the hallway, sipping his morning coffee.

"You seen Fawkes yet this morning?"

"Nope.  He's probably down talkin' to the Keeper."

"Well, go get him and get your butts in here, we've got work to do."  Without waiting for a reply, the Official retreated back into the office and shut the door.

"Aye-aye, sir." Bobby muttered to the empty corridor.  Turning a corner, he headed down to the basement.

 

Claire looked up from her computer screen as the lab door slid open.  "Morning, Bobby," she called.  "What brings you down here?"

"And a happy Monday to you too, Keep. Lookin' for Fawkes."

"I haven't seen him.  He's shouldn't be due for a shot for another two or three days."

"That's odd...wonder if he overslept."  Picking up the nearest phone, Hobbes dialed his partner's number.  Ten rings later, he hung up, bewildered.  "If he's there, he's not picking up.  Wonder where he could be?"

"Maybe he's on his way."  Claire said.

"Yeah, maybe.  Hope so.  Fat Man's gonna have a fit.  Anyway, thanks for the help, Keep!"  Hobbes said as he headed for the door.

"Bobby?" Claire called after him.  Hobbes stopped and turned.  "You do have permission to call me by name, you know."

Hobbes flushed bright red, and tried to talk around a tongue suddenly tied in knots.  "Re..really?  Well...I guess...I mean...I'm honored.  Thanks....Claire."

"You're welcome."

 

An hour later, Darien still hadn't showed up and still wasn't answering his phone. The wireless service informed Hobbes that Darien's cell phone was either turned off or out of the service area.  The Official was seriously pissed, ranting to anyone who would listen about the trials of working with an irresponsible, disrespectful punk kid who belonged in prison and was just begging to be sent back there with these stunts. 

Bobby, on the other hand, was becoming convinced that something dreadful was wrong.  Any of a dozen things could've happened to his partner, none of which were pleasant to contemplate.  It wasn't like the kid to just disappear, at least not anymore.  A few months ago, sure, he'd have pulled something like this just to twitch the boss' tail, but he'd settled down recently and started getting into his work.  In the last couple of weeks, Fawkes had actually expressed eagerness to return to the job, just to escape the tedium of his extended, house-bound vacation. 

By late morning, Bobby convinced the Official to let him go check out Fawkes' place. 

After some tentative knocks, Hobbes unlocked Darien's door and peered into the apartment.  A few months earlier he had kicked this door in, for what seemed like a good reason at the time.  When it turned out otherwise, Hobbes had paid for the repairs by way of apology.  In return, and to show there were no hard feelings, Darien had given him a key.  For emergencies, he'd said.   Hobbes hoped this didn't qualify.

The apartment was dark, quiet, and empty.  After a few minutes of looking around for a clue, Bobby realized what was missing: the white rat.  The cage wasn't in it's usual place on the counter.  That implied that Fawkes had left of his own accord, at least.  Bobby remembered Fawkes mentioning a neighbor kid who took care of his pet when he was away, so he walked across the hall and knocked on the other door.

A small Hispanic woman answered.  "Si?" she queried.

"I was wondering if you could help me, ma'am, I'm looking--"

The woman waved him to a stop.  "Lo siento, señor, no hablo anglais."

Oh, crap. While Bobby's Spanish skills were adequate for most situations, he was by no means fluent,

despite the months he'd spent in Mexico, and now he was out of practice. "Um...Buenos dias, señora.  Estoy...um...ah, hell, what's the word for 'looking'...buscar...buscando...Señor Fawkes?"  Bobby pointed over his shoulder to indicate who he was looking for.

"Ah, si, él fue a visitar a su tía.  Él no se ha vuelto todavía?"

No, Bobby answered her in his broken Spanish, he didn't seem to have come back yet. 'Tía'...that was 'aunt', he recalled.  Went to visit his aunt?  That made sense; the guy had been sidelined for the past month and had missed Thanksgiving.  Guess he wanted to make it up to her.

Bobby thanked the woman for her help and went back to the office.  Now he knew where Fawkes had gone, but still didn't know why he hadn't come back, or at least called in.  Something was still very wrong.

Following up on the neighbor's lead, Hobbes found the number for Mrs. Celia Donovan at the Marymount Retirement Home in Cold Springs.  He called her around lunchtime, hoping to find a logical explanation for his missing partner.  Unfortunately, Mrs. Donovan was just as worried about her nephew as Bobby was.  Seems he'd promised her a trip out to their cabin and a picnic the day before, but never showed up.  She'd called the sheriff's office, but they'd told her she needed to wait 48 hours to report a missing person.  Celia complained that they seemed a bit distracted and hadn't really taken her seriously.

Bobby reassured the woman that he'd do his best to track Darien down.  Hanging up the phone, Bobby felt his stomach clench with worry.  Where could Fawkes have gotten to?  Cold Springs was a small town, kind of hard to get lost in.  Could Arnaud have made another try for the gland?  Or the Chinese?  Bobby knew he had to get up there and try and retrace his partner's steps before the trail got cold.

Fortunately, once he had all the facts, the Official agreed. Eberts made the arrangements; and by mid-afternoon, Bobby was on a flight to Sacramento, with Claire, a dose of counteragent, and some odds and ends of equipment in tow.  By early evening they were driving a rental car up the main street of Cold Springs.

 

As they passed in front of the sheriff's office, Bobby noticed an unusual amount of activity.  Police

cruisers from several nearby jurisdictions lined the street, along with vehicles belonging to the state police

and the FBI. Parked on the lawn were two trucks from Sacramento television stations, their bright

camera lights bathing the scene in a surreal glow. In spite of the cold rain that was falling, several small

groups of curious onlookers were standing on nearby street corners, watching the show unfold.

"Looks like something serious is going on around here," he commented to the Keeper.

"And do you think it's a coincidence?" she asked, almost rhetorically.

"I don't believe in coincidence. At least now we know why Mrs. Donovan thought the cops seemed distracted."  Hobbes found a parking space about a block away, and he and Claire walked quickly towards the station, holding their coats over their heads to stay dry.  Neither had thought to pack an umbrella.

Both Claire and Hobbes came to a startled stop just inside the station doors.  The station was small, designed to accommodate fewer than a dozen officers.  At least five times that many people were now rushing around within, jostling for space and shouting to be heard over the din.  The two visitors paused, not sure who to approach, or how.

After a minute or two, one pair of eyes glanced up from its work across the room and noted their presence.  Fortunately, it was Sheriff Pizzetti, who recognized Hobbes from their previous encounter.  Waving to catch their attention, he beckoned the two back towards his office.

Once the two agents were inside, Pizzetti shut the office door, cutting the commotion outside down to a dull roar.  Turning, he paused a moment as if considering his next move, then offered his hand to both of them.  "Welcome to our little corner of chaos, folks.  Can I help you with something?"

"Looks like you've got a bit of a situation on your hands here, Sheriff," Bobby commented.

"Yep, 'fraid so," Pizzetti sighed, looking out at the mob that had taken over his station.  "We had an armed robbery at the grocery store here yesterday.  Bunch of overgrown adolescents calling themselves a militia group, but they're just thugs in camouflage.  They've been hitting towns all through the mountains here in the past few months and no one's been able to do much about it.  This time we got to the store before they were finished, and they took a hostage.  Rose Egan, a seventeen-year-old girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  They got away clean, because we just didn't have the manpower or firepower to stop them.  Now we've got Feds and Staties and cops from every town for fifty miles here sitting on their thumbs because no one's got a clue where to start looking.  You folks come all the way up here from San Diego just for this?"

Hobbes shook his head. "No, actually we came for a different reason, but it could be related.  Our associate, Darien Fawkes, was up here this weekend, visiting his aunt..."

"Yeah, I ran into him yesterday.  Said he was taking her on a picnic or something."

Claire spoke up.  "Yes, but he never showed up.  Mrs. Donovan hasn't seen Darien since Saturday night.  You say you saw him yesterday—could he have gotten involved in the incident at the grocery store?"

The Sheriff's eyes widened.  "Yeah, he _was_ there, now that you mention it.  He's the one who called me, from his cell phone, while the robbery was still happening.  That's how we got there so quick.  I'd forgotten that, with all that's been happening since.  He must've gone out the back of the store, because he never shows up on the surveillance camera footage at the front, and I didn't see him during the witness interviews afterwards."

Claire and Bobby looked at each other, both thinking the same thing.  Bobby turned back to the Sheriff and asked, "Would it be possible for us to take a look at those surveillance tapes?  We may spot something that you missed, since we know what to look for."

"Sure, knock yourselves out.  Tape's in the machine right behind you; I was watching it myself, earlier.  If you don't mind, I'll leave you to it...I've got a few thousand things I still need to take care of out there."

"Thanks.  We'll be fine.  Let you know if we spot anything," Hobbes assured him.  The sheriff nodded and slipped back out into the main room.

Claire and Bobby watched the surveillance tape carefully, looking for things no one else would see.  The scene was pretty standard hold-up stuff.  A dark-colored four-by-four pulls up to the front of the store, blocking the entrance from view from the street.  Four men rush in, waving guns.  Terrified clerks empty out cash registers and collect other items together as directed.  After several minutes, two cop cars pull up outside.  A stand-off ensues, broken only when one of the thugs grabs a young girl and walks out holding his gun to her head.  The two cops are outnumbered and outmaneuvered; they have no choice but to let them drive away.  One cop gives chase, while the other comes into the store to reassure and question the remaining witnesses. 

There was no sign of Darien Fawkes anywhere in sight, at least not that most people would notice.  What Claire and Bobby saw on the screen, however, was the tailgate of the four-by-four opening and closing, seemingly by itself, just before it took off down the road.

"Damn it, Fawkes," Bobby muttered, seeing that.  "Just had to play the hero, didn't you?"  He'd known, from the minute the sheriff had mentioned the kidnapping, that Fawkes couldn't have just walked away from the scene.  This was a guy, after all, who'd once been arrested while giving CPR to one of his own burglary victims.  "Kid's got more conscience than brains."

Claire nodded, both disturbed and unsurprised.  She, too, had suspected they would see something like this.

Suddenly, the timbre of the voices outside the office changed, from frustration to exuberant celebration.  Looking out into the main room, they saw that more than half of the officers in the crowd were rushing for the doors.  Exiting the office, Bobby and Claire caught the sheriff before he could follow and asked what was going on.

Pizzetti grinned.  "Rose Egan, the girl who got taken yesterday?  We just got a call from a gas station about seventy miles from here.  She showed up there about half an hour ago, wet, half frozen, and exhausted, but safe.  Looks like she escaped and hiked down through the woods to the nearest road.  Guy at the station managed to get her name out of her, remembered it from the news, and called us right after he called the ambulance."

 "Was Darien with her?" Claire piped in.

"Fawkes?  No, why would he be?"

Hobbes cleared his throat.  "Um, we have reason to believe that Agent Fawkes may have concealed himself in the perpetrators' vehicle before they escaped."

Pizzetti frowned, confused.  "I didn't see anyone anywhere near that car on the tape..."

"Well, let's just say that Fawkes has some...special abilities."

"More of that parapsych-whatever crap?"

"Something like that."

"Well, I'm afraid the guy didn't mention anyone being with her.  She arrived at the gas station alone.  If Fawkes did follow her up that mountain, he didn't follow her back down again."

Claire and Hobbes looked at each other wordlessly, both of them getting a sinking feeling.


	3. Damsel in Distress

Darien Fawkes lay on his stomach, peering over the top of the rise. In the clearing below, bathed in the fading afternoon sunlight, a dozen decrepit cabins sat in a semi-circle.  A larger building stood in the center, with half a dozen jeeps and SUV's parked behind it..  All of the buildings were showing sign of neglect; two of the cabins had collapsed completely and the others were visibly sagging.  The place looked like an old summer camp, but it had obviously been abandoned for years, maybe decades.

Careful to be as silent as possible, Darien stretched his cramped legs.  Spending two and a half hours hiding behind the back seat of that SUV, with four armed men and one scared teenager only inches away, had left his muscles and joints in a state of revolt.  Listening to those Neanderthals describe in graphic detail what they planned to do with their prize once they got her here had been enough to drive him to the edge of insanity, without the aid of quicksilver.  Somehow he'd kept himself from killing them all.  One positive side-effect of his brushes with quicksilver madness was a much firmer grip on his everyday temper these days.

Once they'd arrived, he'd followed the group discretely to the cabin where they tied the girl up, sticking around until he was sure they weren't planning to make good on any of their threats right away. They talked big, but Darien had seen dozens like them in prison. Big mouths on the outside, but no action to back up their words.  He privately thought they'd all have to get a bit of alcohol in their systems before they'd have the nerve to actually do anything.

There was a man outside her door standing guard, preventing Darien from effecting an immediate rescue; the other three bandits had proceeded to the larger building where exuberant shouting greeted their entrance.  From their conversations in the car, Darien had the impression that the whole group numbered between ten and twenty. 

 _How the hell did I get myself into this mess?_  Darien wondered.  _I'm supposed to be on vacation._

His stomach growled.  It was late afternoon, now, and all he'd eaten today was a light breakfast.  He wished he'd thought to grab something to munch on at the store before he'd rushed out.

Out of nervous habit, Darien peeled back his watch band and looked at the tattoo again.  Four of the ten segments were red.  About three days until he'd need his shot, or just eighteen minutes of quicksilver use, and the nearest batch of counteragent was five hundred miles away.  Beautiful.  _Guess I'll just have to rescue the damsel in distress the old-fashioned way_ , he mused ironically. 

Darien decided he'd just have to cross his fingers and hope nothing befell the girl before nightfall; once it was dark, he'd go in and try to break her out.  Darkness had served him well in the past, long before he'd ever had the option of invisibility.

 

Hours later, in the faint light of the quarter moon, Darien finally picked his way quietly down the hill towards the campground.  After several hours of observation, he still hadn't figured out how to deal with the guard outside the cabin.  They'd rotated the assignment every couple of hours, so he couldn't count on the guy falling asleep.  Approaching from the front, even quicksilvered, was out of the question; the tall, dry grass would give him away with every step.

 _Oh, well_ , he thought, _we'll burn that bridge when we come to it_.  Darien circled through the woods and approached the cabin from behind.  Once there, he paused for a few moments to make sure no one had noticed him, then looked up.  Light from inside the cabin shone out through a window just above his head.  The window itself had long since shattered and the frame had almost completely disintegrated, leaving just a square hole in the wall.

With the grace of long experience, Darien jumped up, grabbed the bottom edge of the opening and pulled himself up.  _Gee, and I thought I was through scaling buildings and sneaking into places through the back door_ , he thought with a silent chuckle.

Once inside, Darien crept across the room carefully, instinctively avoiding loose floorboards that would creak and give him away.  In the far corner of the cabin, the girl lay on a filthy army surplus cot, her wrists tied to the frame above her head.  She appeared to be asleep, though the tear stains on her face testified to her terror in the preceding hours.

He started across the room towards her, then froze.  Raucous, drunken voices and laughter filtered in from outside, getting louder by the second.  _Crap,_ he thought, _sometimes I hate being right._

The voices got closer, and gradually Darien could make out words.

"Still say I oughta go firsht," slurred one voice.  "I'se the one who grabbed her."

"Georgie," responded a second voice, "You couldn't get it up without a jack. There's plenny to go 'round.  Wait yer turn."

The heavy tread of many booted feet sounded across the porch outside.  The girl on the bed started awake at the noise.  She instantly spotted Darien standing in the middle of the room, but before she could cry out he put a finger to his lips and disappeared.

Stunned by the vanishing apparition, the girl barely noticed when the door slammed open and half a dozen drunken louts wandered in, making lewd comments and disgusting noises, egging each other into a gang bang.

Knowing he was burning quicksilver minutes he couldn't easily spare, Darien didn't hesitate.  Taking three steps across the room, he grabbed the heads of the two in the lead and slammed them together as hard as he could. 

The other four saw their companions fall, but they were so drunk they just laughed at the pair's apparent clumsiness.  Darien repeated the trick with the next two in the group.

The last two were standing too far apart for the same treatment, and the danger signals were starting to flash through their sodden brains.  Fortunately for Darien Fawkes, even stone cold sober opponents rarely knew what to do against an invisible man.  Grabbing a rifle that had dropped from the grasp of one of the fallen men, Darien used the butt end to club the last two into unconsciousness.

He looked up to see the girl staring at him.  Or rather, at the gun that was apparently floating in midair.  Shedding the quicksilver, Darien dropped the gun and moved towards her.  She cringed away as he crouched down beside her.

"Shh," he whispered, repeating the gesture for silence.  "Don't worry, I'm one of the good guys."

"Who....what....?"

"Darien Fawkes.  The 'what' is a bit complicated, and we really don't have the time at the moment."

"But how did you..." 

"Short answer -- a bit of science and a lot of bad luck.  Now, you want to stay here and wait for the next batch while I explain everything, or shall we make a break for it?"

At the mention of others, the girl shook off her shock and confusion and nodded.  Darien found a large knife on the belt of one of the unconscious figures nearby and started cutting the ropes binding the prisoner.  "You have a name?" he asked as he cut, taking care to avoid nicking her wrists.

"Rose," she whispered.

Within moments, Rose was sitting up, rubbing her wrists where the ropes had chafed.  "So," she asked, "now what?"

"We hot-wire one of their cars and get the hell out of Dodge.  I have to confess, though, I have no clue where we are.  I wasn't exactly in a position to watch the road on the way up here.  We'll just have to head downhill and hope we find a town before we run out of gas."

 

The getaway was going without a hitch, right up until the last moment.  Darien and Rose jogged across the compound towards the makeshift parking lot.  Darien chose a vehicle with an unlocked door and a full gas tank, then set to work on the ignition wires, feeling a bit nostalgic.  This was how he'd gotten his start, after all—boosting cars for a weekend joyride.  Until one day when he was fifteen; he'd tried to swipe a cool car and been caught in the act by the cops.  Amazingly enough, though, the owner of the car had saved him, claiming he was her nephew.  The woman's name had been Liz Morgan, and once the cops had gone, she'd asked if he wanted a few pointers.  The rest, as they say, was history.

Suddenly, in a shining example of bad timing, a man staggered out of the main lodge door just as Darien touched the last wires together and revved the engine.  For about five seconds, the drunk stared blearily at them through the windshield of the vehicle.  Then, as if a spell had been broken, Darien slammed the car into reverse and the man started shouting for help from the others.  Within moments, the chase was on.

Darien careened down the winding mountain road away from the camp, pushing the vehicle as fast as he dared in the darkness.  He was at a disadvantage, he knew, because he had no idea where he was or where he was going, and he was unfamiliar with the terrain.  Their pursuers had no such difficulties.  Apparently there had been a few in the crew still fairly sober, if their driving was any indication.

One point in his favor, however; Darien had grown up on roads like these.  Back when he was Rose's age, he and John had had crazy competitions with each to see how fast they could take the curves through these mountains without plunging over the side.  It had been a while since Darien had tried it, but apparently his reflexes still remembered.  He couldn't seem to lose the car that was following them, but it wasn't gaining much ground on them either.

That is, until fate threw them a left turn.  And a right turn.

They lost precious seconds at a T-intersection while Darien tried to decide which way to go.  Veering left at last, he found that he'd lost his hundred-yard lead and had their pursuers right on their tail.  Darien pushed the accelerator down a fraction more, riding the ragged edge between speed and control.  Rose was huddled down in the passenger seat, eyes clamped shut, right hand holding the door handle in a death grip.  Darien wanted to reassure her somehow, but couldn't spare any attention from the winding road.

Glancing in the rear view mirror, he spotted the barrel of a rifle emerging from the passenger window of the vehicle behind them.  He swerved just as the gun flashed, and heard the bullet impact the back of the car instead of the tire they'd probably been aiming for.

For a moment, the road emerged from the dense forest onto a clear ridge.  Glancing down the slope, for just a second Darien could see the lights of several towns scattered through valleys below them, before they plunged back into the trees. 

He managed to avoid the second rifle shot by pure luck and heard the bullet once again punch a hole in the tailgate. Then Darien tried to swerve a third time, but wasn't fast enough.

Between the high speed and the wild careening around curves, Darien later realized he was lucky he didn't roll the car over when their tire was shot out.  As it was, however, they did end up skidding off the road into a shallow ditch, coming to rest abruptly against a fallen tree.

As Darien drew his face out of the airbag, he heard the other car screech to a stop about fifty yards up the road.  He looked to his right; Rose looked dazed, but appeared uninjured. 

He knew they only had seconds before their pursuers made it back to them.  Placing one hand on the girl's arm, he said, "Stay here, and keep your head down," then threw the door open and rolled out onto the ground.  Since the chase had begun, Darien had had to suppress his fear, to keep the adrenaline spike from turning him involuntarily invisible.  The control was almost instinctive now, after months of practice.  Now, however, he released that control and quicksilvered in record time.

One thing he had to say for quicksilver, it was almost as good as night-vision goggles.  He could now clearly see two men walking carefully towards him along the road, carrying their rifles at the ready.

Thinking quickly, Darien reached out and quicksilvered a rock about the size of a grapefruit.  Then, weapon in hand, he clambered up onto the road and met the two young thugs halfway.  He knocked the first one out with no problem.  The second, seeing his partner fall, started to panic and swing his rifle around, looking for a target.  In his panic, his finger tightened reflexively on the trigger just as Darien's rock hit his skull.

Rose, crouching terrified on the floor of the car, heard the shot and then heard Darien scream in pain.  Without thinking, she rushed out of the car and onto the road.  There she saw two camouflage clad men lying sprawled on the pavement.  Darien was there too, rolling on the ground and moaning in obvious pain, his left hand clutching at his right shoulder..

Rushing over, she placed a hand on his arm and asked, "What happened?"

Through gritted teeth, Darien managed to say, "Guy got lucky...."  Rose could see a dark stain slowly spreading under his hand.  Her panic rose up in her throat, but the first aid classes she took the previous summer told her what she needed to do.  Grabbing a bandana from around the neck of one of their unconscious pursuers, she applied pressure to slow the bleeding.

Some minutes later, she and Darien both noticed a sound approaching at the same time.  Several vehicles, coming fast.  They looked at each other and Darien said, "We need to get out of here."

They struggled to their feet.  With Darien leaning on Rose for support, they ran towards the vehicle that had been chasing them, hoping to appropriate it for themselves.  Before they could reach it, though, three more cars came screaming around the corner and caught them in their headlights.

"Into the woods!" Darien yelled.  "Run!"


	4. Fight of Flight

Sitting quietly in the far corner of the hospital room, Bobby Hobbes listened as the cops and the FBI questioned Rose Egan about her capture, rescue, and escape.  The girl was huddled under a mound of blankets, clutching a paper cup of hot chocolate, trying to get warm again.  Mrs. Egan was sitting beside the bed, holding her daughter's hand tightly between both of hers, as if afraid to let go.

It was after midnight now.  Heavy rain was beating against the windows of the hospital room.  Listening to the pounding rhythm, Bobby's stomach clenched with worry.  His partner was out there, in that.  By morning, the temperatures were supposed to drop near freezing, especially at the higher elevations.  It was already snowing on the highest peaks, the first taste of the long winter to come. 

Inside the hospital room, the interview was going slowly and methodically.  Too slowly.  Hobbes wanted to just grab the girl by the shoulders and shake her until she told him where his partner was.  He knew, however, that the only reason he was still in the room at all was that the rest of the cops had forgotten he was there.  _Sometimes,_ he mused, _you can be invisible without a fancy gland._

Hobbes repressed a yawn as the interrogators gently led the girl step by step through her experience: Fawkes appearance on Sunday night, seemingly out of nowhere, the fight in the cabin, stealing the militia's vehicle, racing over mountain roads with another car in hot pursuit.  Hobbes noticed that she stumbled a few times in her recitation, as if she was carefully not telling everything she knew.  He wondered if she knew about Fawkes' hidden talent.

When she began to describe how the car was forced off the road, and how Darien had been wounded while taking on the two armed men, Hobbes suddenly felt his stomach clench again with dread.  There was no way to tell from Rose's description how bad his partner had been hurt.

Bobby finally couldn't contain his frustration any longer.  "And you left him up there?  Alone and injured out in the middle of the woods?" he demanded angrily. The officers standing around the room looked up as a unit and practically growled in annoyance at the interruption.

Rose, who up until that point had been speaking about her experiences with an icy calm, looked up at Hobbes with tears welling in her eyes.

"I didn't want to!" she cried, her voice finally breaking with the release of emotions she'd been repressing for almost two days.  "We ran and ran, until they finally seemed to give up chasing us.  We found a little shelter under some rocks, and I tried to help Darien stop the bleeding, but we didn't have much to work with.

"When morning came, we tried to hike out.  We'd only gone a couple of miles when we heard dogs barking behind us. It sounded like those scenes you see in the movies, cops and bloodhounds tracking the criminals.  Except it was the criminals tracking us."

Hobbes anger evaporated, as he finally saw what should have been obvious from the start.  "He made you go on without him, didn't he?"

Rose, her eyes red and puffy from crying, looked surprised and nodded.  "He said the dogs would follow his scent because of the blood, so if we split up they might miss my trail.  I didn't want to leave him behind, told him I wouldn't.  We were standing on the bank of a creek, and he told me to walk in the water for as long as I could, to hide my scent, and follow the creek downhill until I found a road.  Then he just disappeared…I mean, took off.  I heard him running into the woods.  I couldn't find him, couldn't follow him, so I just did what he said."

Hobbes shook his head morosely.  _Dammit, Fawkes,_ he fumed.  _You shouldn't pull these stunts when I'm not around to save your ass..._

One of the uniformed officers stalked over to Hobbes and looked down at him menacingly.  "Sir," he said, giving the word a very derogatory overtone, "you really shouldn't be in here, this is official..."

Suddenly a thought occurred to Hobbes.  Ignoring the cretin who was yammering at him, he looked across the room at the Cold Springs sheriff.  "Hey, Pizzetti, you got topo maps of the area where Ms. Egan was picked up?"

Pizzetti nodded, looking a bit lost.  "Sure, down in the cruiser, but why..."

Instead of answering, Bobby turned back to the girl.  "You think you could help us trace the route you took down the mountain, even roughly?  We might be able to find that old summer camp on a topo map even if it's no longer on a marked road.  Most of the USGS maps were made back in the 1950's; I'll betcha that back then the camp would have been active and the road marked."

Rose thought about it a moment.  "I...think so. I do know how to read a topo map.  That creek should be marked, and I'd say we weren't more than three or four miles from where we crashed when he left me at the creek."

"Pizzetti..." Hobbes said, turning around, only to find that the sheriff had already figured it out and had gone out to get the maps.

 

The rain had died down to a mere drizzle when the FBI conducted a surprise dawn raid on the militia camp.  Of the seventeen men encountered there, two were killed and three wounded in the initial skirmish.  The rest surrendered after a short, tense standoff.  It had helped that most of them were still asleep when the raid started.

Hobbes stood on a rise overlooking the camp, clothed in a borrowed poncho and watching the action through a pair of borrowed binoculars.  He was having trouble holding the binoculars steady as he shivered in the cold.  As predicted, the temperatures had plunged as the cold front moved through.  Several puddles nearby had thin skins of ice coating their surfaces.

Claire was about twenty yards away, similarly clad, fiddling with some piece of equipment that she refused to explain.  So far, whatever she was doing, she apparently wasn't getting the results she wanted. 

Pizzetti sat in his car nearby, waiting tensely for some news to come over the radio.  The Feds had allowed them to tag along in hopes that Darien or some clue to his whereabouts might be found within the camp. 

So far, there was nothing.

From his vantage point, Hobbes could see a fenced area behind the main building.  There were several large dog houses and half a dozen hunting dogs within the fence.  A couple of FBI agents were sweeping the area, looking for stragglers while keeping a wary eye on the dogs.  Suddenly one of the agents froze, as if he heard a noise.  He made a subtle signal to his partner, nodding towards one of the dog houses.

Within moments, the two agents were pulling a young boy out of the small opening, kicking and screaming.  The kid didn't look more than fifteen or sixteen.  After a short struggle, the two agents managed to calm him down and cuff his hands.

Seeing the boy and the dogs, Hobbes had a flash of an idea.  Without a word, he made his way down the hill and into the camp. 

He approached the agent in charge of the operation, putting on his best expression of humility.  It was really hard to refrain from being a smartass around the FBI, but at least this wasn't Jones he had to deal with.  It helped that the agent he was speaking to was female; his instinct to be snarky was easily countered by an even stronger instinct to be charming.

"Agent Nelson?" Bobby said cautiously. 

The woman held up a hand as she relayed some instructions to one of the men in the field, then turned towards Hobbes and replied, "Something I can help you with, Mr. Hobbes?"

"I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you."

"You can ask.  I don't guarantee an answer you'll be happy with."

"Well, you see, my partner's lost out there in the woods somewhere. You asked us to put off a full search and rescue operation for a few hours so you'd have the element of surprise here, but if we're gonna to find him before he dies of exposure, we gotta move fast.  There's a lot of ground to cover out there; if I could talk to some of your prisoners, the ones that were out yesterday hunting him, I might be able to narrow down the search area a bit."

Agent Nelson thought about this for a moment, then nodded.  "Don't see why not.  We'll set you up in one of the cabins over there.  Want me to just pick one for you?"

"Actually, I'd like to start with the boy they just plucked out of the kennel area back there.  He was with the dogs; maybe he's their caretaker or something.  They might've taken him along yesterday to handle them." 

Nelson nodded and started giving orders into her radio.

When the boy was brought into the cabin several minutes later, Hobbes was momentarily discouraged.  The expression of fear and confusion on the kid's face was vague and somewhat vacant; Bobby suspected he might be mentally retarded to some degree.  His plans for a quick, harsh interrogation flew right out the window.  Time for a different tactic.

Mentally switching gears, he walked softly over to where the boy was seated.  Pulling a second chair across the floor, he sat facing the boy so their eyes were level with each other.

"Hi,"  Bobby began.  "What's your name?"

"D...D...Davey," the boy stuttered.

"Hi, Davey, my name's Bobby."  Hobbes placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.  "It's okay, you don't have to be scared.  I'm not gonna hurt you.  I just want to ask you a few questions."

"Is Georgie all right?"

"Georgie?"

"M..my brother.  He takes care of me.  He lets me take care of the puppies."

 _Puppies,_ Hobbes chuckled inwardly.  _Yeah, right.._   Some of those beasts nearly outweighed this kid.  "I'm sure Georgie's fine, Davey.  I actually wanted to ask you about the 'puppies' you take care of.  Did you go out with them yesterday when they went hunting?"

Davey's eyes brightened as a smile broke across his face.  "Uh huh.  Didn't tell me what we were hunting, but the puppies knew.  They like hunting.  They like the woods."

"Did the puppies find what they were looking for?"  Hobbes asked, dreading the answer.

The boy's expression darkened, fearful.  "N...n...no...puppies got scared.  The woods were haunted.  Georgie and the others...they tried to make the puppies go on, keep hunting, but they wouldn't.  They tried to hit the puppies, but the ghost wouldn't let them.  The ghost said to leave.  We did.  We came back here."

Hobbes nearly laughed aloud in relief and amusement.  _Focus, Bobby,_ he admonished himself a second later, _you haven't found him yet._

"Davey," Bobby inquired, "Can you read a map?"

"No, never was much good at reading.  I can read 'Cat in the Hat,' kinda.  And I love reading 'Wacky Wednesday,' but that's mostly for the funny pictures."

Trying not to show his disappointment, Bobby patted the boy on the shoulder.  "That's okay, kid.  Thanks for the help, anyway."  Calling the agent outside back in to take the boy away, Bobby walked out onto the rickety porch. He looked around for Agent Nelson, intending to ask her to find the one named Georgie.  Maybe _he_ could be persuaded to read a map.  Instead, he spotted Claire jogging down the hill towards him, waving that electronic whatsit she'd been so focussed on earlier.  He climbed down the stairs and met her halfway.

"Bobby," Claire exclaimed breathlessly, "I found him!"


	5. Lost

For the fourth time in as many minutes, Darien stumbled over a stone or a root in his path.  He was exhausted.  The hole in his shoulder was on fire, throbbing in pain with every step and every heartbeat.  He'd looped his belt around his neck to use as a makeshift sling, to take pressure off of the arm.  The wound wasn't bleeding anymore, but the right sides of both his shirt and jacket were stiff and dark with dried blood.

The temperature was dropping again as he moved into his second night in these woods.  Already weakened by shock and blood loss, Darien could feel the cold seeping into his bones.  Even the exertion of constant walking could not completely overcome the growing chill.

He hadn't eaten since yesterday morning, except for some early sprouts of miner's lettuce he'd happened upon earlier in the afternoon.  That was just about the only thing out here he knew was okay to eat.  Stuff probably had fewer calories than it took to chew it up, but at least it quieted his stomach for a time.  Even so, he could tell that his increasing hunger was starting to affect him, making his mind sluggish and his body weak.

I wonder if Rose made it out. 

Gods, he hoped so, or this whole hellish effort was for nothing.  The hope wasn't just for her sake, though; if she made it, there was a chance they'd send searchers to find him.  In the past few hours, as evening approached, Darien had realized he was hopelessly lost.  He'd thought he was heading back for the road, but he should have reached it long since if he'd been on the right track.  Somewhere along the way he'd lost his bearings.  Rose was the only one who knew he was out here at all.  He'd tried to call for help on his cell phone several times, but just like yesterday at the camp, the thing just couldn't find a signal.  _Cheap piece of Agency crap_.

He'd hated leaving Rose to fend for herself, but it had been the only real option he could see.  He couldn't protect her from their pursuers directly without using a lot of quicksilver, and then she'd be at just as much risk from him as she was from them. 

Checking his monitor, he grimaced.  Two segments left.  Even on his own, he'd used too much.  Rose was far better off alone in these woods than she would be with a rescuer who was now mere hours away from insanity.

At least he'd gotten the dogs off her trail.  And then off of his.  Darien smiled as he remembered the expression on that guy's face when an unseen, _cold_ hand had stopped him from hitting the dogs.  They probably weren't the first people to think him a ghost, but he'd never had the opportunity to use that misconception to his advantage before. 

Poor kid...what'd they call him?  Davey?  Hated scaring him like that.  Sad to see a kid manipulated so badly by his own brother.  He's as much a victim of that gang as Rose was, even if he doesn't realize it. 

Darien found himself thinking about his own brother.  Not that that was anything unusual; he thought about Kevin a lot, especially when his life took a turn for the worse.  Kevin had saved him from a bad situation once, though it had turned out to be a case of 'out of the frying pan, into the fire.'  His intentions had been good, but the results were not exactly what either of them had hoped for.

In the early days after Kevin's death, Darien had felt deep resentment against what he saw as his brother's exploitation of him.  But after being forced to face his death again and bury him a second time, Darien found that the anger had faded.  Or at least been redirected.  Kevin had been trying to help, he'd realized, the only way he could.  That it had turned out so badly was not exactly Kevin's fault.  Darien now reserved his anger and hatred for Arnaud, the true author of all of his miseries.

Now Darien found himself wishing his brother could ride to the rescue again.  It was odd, considering all the years they had spent not even speaking to each other, to miss him so badly now.

He and Kevin hadn't always been so distant.  In the bleak and terrifying days after their parents were killed, they had clung to each other, simply because they had no one else. 

They had spent a week in the hospital together, recovering from the injuries they suffered in the car accident that stole their parents from them, waiting for Social Services to figure out their future.  They were lost and confused, and there had been no one to comfort them, to tell them things would be all right.  They had only had each other.

~*~*~*~

_Careful not to jostle the sling cradling his right arm, the small boy squirmed out of the hospital bed and crept silently around the privacy curtain towards the other side of the room.  They'd told him to stay put, told him not to disturb his brother, but he didn't care if they punished him. He needed to talk to Kev._

_Standing on tiptoe, he could just reach his good arm over the rail on the side of the bed..  Good thing he was tall for a eight-year-old._

_"Kev?  You awake?"_

_The small figure in the bed stirred slightly, but didn't respond.  Kev was still pretty hurt, more than Darien had been.  His face was bruised and still a bit swollen.  A small, clear tube ran from a plastic bag hanging overhead to a needle in the back of his hand._

_Darien reached up and touched his brother on the arm.  "Kevin?"_

_Kevin's eyes opened at last.  He turned he head slightly to look down at his baby brother.  "What d'ya want, squirt?" he asked groggily, affecting his typical older-brother tone.  'Squirt' was a bit of a misnomer; Kevin might be three years older, but he was small for his age.  Standing side-by-side, the two brothers had occasionally been mistaken for fraternal twins._

_"Y'know that lady who came to talk to us yesterday?" Darien whispered._

_"Yeah?"_

_"Well, after she left, I snuck out and followed her.  I heard her talking to someone on the phone.  They're planning to split us up."_

_That woke Kevin up completely.  "Split us up?  Why?"_

_"There's no relatives for them to send us to.  The lady was upset about it, but she was saying they couldn't find any foster homes willing to take both of us at the same time.  Kev, I don't want to lose you, too."_

_Kevin reached over and grasped Darien's hand.  He spoke with all the authority his greater age and wisdom could muster.  "You won't.  We'll stick together, no matter what.  If they take you away, I'll find you.  Nothing can keep us apart for long, little brother.  Nobody's ever going to come between us."_

~*~*~*~

Yes, even as a child Kevin was hopelessly naïve, Darien recalled with a sad smile.  At the time, though, it was exactly what Darien had needed to hear.  He had cherished that promise, clung to it with a child's single-mindedness for years thereafter.  And had felt childishly betrayed when it was not fulfilled.

Fortunately, the government had finally found a relative to send them to.  Their mother had had a half-sister, though she hadn't known it and the two had never even met.  Darien and Kevin's grandfather had apparently already been married once before he met their grandmother, and had a daughter named Celia from his first marriage.  She had been raised by her mother after a bitter divorce and had never had any contact with her father or his second family.

Celia was much older than Darien and Kevin's mother had been, already in her late forties and married to a renowned research doctor named Peter Donovan.  The couple was childless, and genuinely content to be so; Peter's life's work consumed him almost completely, and Celia had her own career as a high school English teacher to fulfill herself and satisfy her maternal instincts. When these two young boys got dropped on their doorstep, their lives were turned upside-down.

Aunt Celia had been totally unprepared for this sudden responsibility, but she'd done her best, Darien had to give her that.  Uncle Peter, on the other hand, had seemed unable to relate to children at all, or to just about anyone except his wife on any level except science and medicine. 

A mutual interest in those subjects had eventually formed the foundation for a strong bond with young Kevin, but Darien had never managed to do anything but annoy the man, even on his good days.

 

In the rapidly fading twilight and deepening shadows of the forest Darien stumbled again, breaking himself out of his nostalgic reverie as pain shot through his shoulder and arm.  His knees were shaking in exhaustion and his fingers were slowly going numb with cold.  His entire body was wracked with almost uncontrollable shivering.  The cold and hunger were taking their toll. 

More ominous still was the faint but growing ache at the base of his skull.

Gotta find a way outta here before I freeze my ass off.

Breaking through another layer of underbrush, Darien looked up to find himself in a small clearing.  He looked up, hoping to spot a familiar constellation or the North Star to get a sense of direction, only to be disappointed at the heavy cloud cover.  A stiff, damp breeze rustled the dry leaves all around him.  Then a drop of water struck his cheek.  A chill ran up Darien's spine, this time having nothing to do with the temperature.

Crap, that's just what I need.

He knew the bare basics of survival in the wilderness.  Rule number one was always to stay dry, no matter what.  A person could get hypothermia on a sunny summer day if their clothes were wet.  Here, on the cusp of winter, it could be fatal, and swiftly.  He needed to find shelter before the rain started in earnest.

Striding quickly into the clearing, Darien scanned his surroundings for something, anything, to hide under.  A second, and then a third raindrop fell on his head.  He could hear the gentle patter all around him as water droplets struck the dry leaves and thirsty soil, the rhythm growing faster by the second.

Turning towards the far end of the clearing, Darien's eyes were drawn to a large tree lying at an angle against one of its neighbors.  The roots of the tree had been pulled out of the ground, leaving a shallow depression in the soil sheltered by the overhanging roots.  He hurried forward.

Within moments, Darien was lying half buried in a layer of dead leaves beneath the shelter of the tree roots.  Curling into a fetal position to conserve what body heat he could, and with his chilled fingers tucked under his arms, he listened to the rain pound on the ground just inches away and tried to think warm thoughts.  If anything, his shivering increased in intensity as the minutes passed, now that he no longer had exertion to keep him warm.

No longer forced to concentrate on walking and ducking vegetation, Darien drifted into semi-consciousness and waking dreams triggered by the sounds and smells around him.

~*~*~*~

_He crouched lower, barely breathing, watching his pursuer through the dense layers of  foliage and spider webs.  It had taken considerable effort to get into this position; the bushes were spiny and the spider webs he'd broken through had been especially strong and sticky.  But it was worth it.  Nobody would ever find him in here.  The hunter walked past, oblivious to his quarry hiding mere inches away._

_Suddenly, a man's voice sounded faintly through the woods.  "John!  Darien!  Enough with the hide-and-seek, boys, dinner's ready!"_

_John Pizzetti paused in his search at the sound of his father's voice.  He turned and shouted, "Coming!"_

_Turning back and scanning the woods, John called out,  "Hey, Darien, did you hear that?  C'mon, I give up, let's go eat."_

_"Okay, Pizza, hold your horses," said a disappointed voice, practically in his ear, causing him to jump. The bushes he was standing next to started rustling, faintly at first, then more violently.  Looking down, John could see Darien's legs slowly inching their way backwards out of the thicket. When he finally worked free and stood up, John couldn't help but laugh._

_"What?" his friend asked, annoyed._

_"You should see yourself, Fawkes.  You've got more cobwebs on you than we've got in our whole attic."_

_The two boys headed  back towards the campfire, both of them brushing dirt off their clothes and trying to clean the webs out of Darien's hair as they went._

_Harry Pizzetti looked up from the grill as Johnny and his friend stumbled into camp, both of them looking like the 'before' pictures in a laundry detergent ad.  He smirked. Someday, some scientist was going to figure out how to harness the magnetic attraction between ten-year-old boys and dirt, and the world's power problems would be solved forever._

_The boys dug into the meal with gusto, consuming nearly their own body weight in  freshly grilled hamburgers al fresco and the world-famous Pizzetti potato salad. For a time, the meal was silent._

_Finally, the older man spoke up. "Why didn't you invite your brother to come along on this trip, Darien?  You boys used to be all but inseparable."_

_Darien shrugged.  "I did, but Uncle Peter had offered to take him to this big science convention, and for some reason Kev picked that over this." Darien's tone suggested an utter incomprehension of that choice._

_"Your uncle didn't offer to take you along, too?"_

_"Nah.  Guess he didn't think I'd be interested."_

_"Would you have gone if he'd asked?"_

_Darien shrugged again, stuffing the last bite of his third hamburger into his mouth.  He privately thought it would have been nice if they'd at least invited him to come.  Between their attendance of different schools and Kevin's recent obsession with their uncle's basement lab, Darien hardly got to talk to his brother at all anymore.  It might have been worth a few days of boredom just to spend some time together._

_Leaning back, Darien started to wipe his greasy hands on the front of his shirt.  Suddenly, he froze in place, his eyes widening in shock and pain._

_"Aaaah!  Get it off!  Get it off me!" he screamed, pulling at his shirt frantically, scrambling backwards as if in attempt to escape his own clothing._

_Unable to reason with or calm the panicked child, Harry Pizzetti finally had to pin Darien down and strip off his shirt.  Underneath, clinging to the boy's stomach, was a large, shiny black spider.  Darien screamed even louder at the sight and thrashed about wildly.  With an exclamation of disgust, Harry swiped the creature away, knocking it into the campfire._

_"Shit!" he cried, forgetting for the moment to watch his language.  "Where'd that come from?"_

_"He was hiding in the bushes, Dad," John said, trying to hide his shock at his father's profanity.  "He came out all covered in spider webs.  It must have crawled on him in there."_

_"Darien?"  Harry said.  The boy on the ground had stopped screaming but now just lay there, staring fixedly at nothing, nearly catatonic in shock and terror.  "Darien, did it bite you?"  Still no response.  Harry looked over his chest and abdomen and was horrified to find what looked like a bite mark over his ribs, the area around it already turning red._

_"John," he said, his voice deepening into the commanding tone he'd learned as a sergeant in 'Nam, "go grab your sleeping bag and bring it to me.  Then throw some water on that fire."_

_John was confused, but the intensity of his father's order forestalled any questions.  Within five minutes, Darien was wrapped snugly in the sleeping bag, lying in the back seat of the Pizzetti's station wagon.  Harry ordered his son into the passenger seat and drove them away, abandoning all of their other gear and the steaming remains of a campfire in his haste to get the boy to a hospital._

~*~*~*~

Darien could smile a bit at that memory, now.  Thanks to the overuse of his spider phobia in Kevin's quicksilver experiments, that once-paralyzing fear had faded considerably.  Kevin had eventually had to resort to teaching him biofeedback techniques when he could no longer provoke the quicksilver through fear stimulus.

The ten-year-old Darien had spent a couple of days in the hospital with that black widow bite.  He'd been sick and miserable, but never in any real danger.  At least, not enough to bring Uncle Peter and Kevin home from the conference, he recalled a bit bitterly.

 

As the darkness deepened and the hours passed, the rain continued to fall.  Darien's thoughts gradually grew more disjointed as his body temperature dropped.  The shivering slowly faded away as his body ran out of energy and gave up the struggle to keep him warm.

The first severe quicksilver headache struck just after midnight.  The increase in adrenaline and body temperature brought on the first stages of madness cleared his mind somewhat, for a short time.  At first he was confused, not remembering where he was or why he was so cold.

Opening his eyes to look around, Darien could see nothing in the pitch blackness of the rainy night.  Neither moon nor stars shone through the clouds to provide illumination, no matter how he strained his eyes.  The small part of his mind that was still capable of rational thought recognized the growing hopelessness of the situation and despaired.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

His will to survive had been beaten down. So many months, and instead of being closer to freedom, closer to avenging his brother's death, he was lying here in the wilderness debating with himself whether it would be worth the effort it would take to save himself.

Then, suddenly, a figure appeared before him, bright as day against the blackness.  The figure smiled down at him and chuckled to itself, then spoke in that lilting, annoying accent that Darien had learned to despise.

"Ah, the great Darien Fawkes, brought down at last by his own arrogance."

 _Arnaud_ , Darien thought silently, _How could he have found me out here?_   Part of Darien's mind knew this was a dream, a hallucination, but it was a distant knowledge, obscured by confusion and pain.

"You're going to die out here, you know," taunted the specter of his nemesis.

 _Yes_.  Darien realized it was true. He was going to die out here, and he couldn't find it in himself to care anymore. It wasn't like there was anyone who would miss him. Well, maybe the Official, but only because he'd be losing his investment.

"How does it feel to know that you failed?  Your brother is unavenged.  You'll die here, and I'll live another fifty years, free and unrepentant."

At least I'll take your precious gland with me when I go.  You'll never get your hands on it.  And neither will the Agency.  It will die here with me, and no one else will ever have to be enslaved by it.  I'll be free of it, of you, of all of them.  Free. This life had never been what he wanted, never been part of his plan of a life a leisure after making the big score. This had been forced upon him and he could find few regrets in letting it go.

"Why don't you use the gland?  Quicksilver is a wonderful insulator, you know...it would keep you warm, keep you alive for a few more hours."  The image of Arnaud faded out before Darien could think of a reply.

Suddenly another stabbing pain ripped through his skull, throwing his body briefly into convulsions.  _Stage two,_ his mind diagnosed, remembering the Keeper's new system.  His eyes would be badly bloodshot by now.  As the pain faded, he tried to look at his tattoo, but found he couldn't move.  He was surprised he hadn't gone over already, but perhaps the cold was slowing the process.  He'd have to ask the Keeper about that...she could run some tests...

Quicksilver.  It was an idea he hadn't really considered, though he now remembered a discussion with Claire on that very subject, just two weeks before..

~*~*~*~

_"So what are we learning here, Claire?  Is it really necessary to inflict all this torture on me?" he'd asked petulantly, peering across the room at the fuzzy figure he thought was her.  He'd been blind for two weeks already, and only now was he regaining some ability to distinguish light and dark, shapes and shadows._

_"Darien," she said soothingly, "I explained this to you.  The more I can learn about quicksilver and the gland, the better my chances are of figuring out how to remove it.  Since you can't go out on assignment at the moment, this is something equally useful you can do."_

_"So, as I said, what are we learning?"_

_"Today, we are refining our understanding of quicksilver's physical properties.  Specific gravity, surface tension, chemical reactivity, electrical conductance..."_

_"Ouch, yes, I remember that one.  So, what I've learned is not to play with live wires while quicksilvered."_

_"Yes, it is a strong electrical conductor, but strangely, it's also an excellent thermal insulator."_

_"Eh?  Translation?"_

_"The outside layer of the quicksilver gets very cold when you're invisible, but you don't feel that cold on the inside, do you?  That's because the quicksilver has one of the lowest thermal conductivities I've ever seen.  You could stand in the middle of a fire and you wouldn't get burned."_

_"Been there, done that.  It would work the other way too, wouldn't it?  If I got myself locked in a freezer or something, I could just stay invisible and not freeze.  For hours."_

_"Well..."_

_Darien could hear the consternation in Claire's voice, could almost see the worried look on her face in his mind's eye.   "What's wrong?"_

_"That could be a problem.  You'd hit stage four madness in thirty minutes--"_

_"Wait, wait...stage four?  What's that?"_

_"I've broken the quicksilver madness into stages, based on the symptoms you exhibit."  She gave him a brief explanation of each.  "You've only hit stage four, with the full red eyes and the complete loss of inhibitions, a couple of times, and never for very long.  The longest was your first episode, and that was atypical since your body was still adjusting to the gland.  There are...indications...that there may be a fifth stage."_  
  
"And that's bad?"

_"Since I've never seen it, I can't be sure, but it could be very bad."_

~*~*~*~

Using quicksilver to keep warm at this point would bring the madness in seconds. Survival, yes, but at what cost?  Did he want to survive if it meant giving in to his demons? Privately, Darien thought this "stage five" madness might just be a scare tactic, something to tie him even more firmly to the agency and the counteragent. It was hard to imagine something worse than stage four.  Still, if it was real, it sure seemed to scare the Keeper. 

_No, if I'm going to die, I'd rather do it in my right mind._

He glanced back up, but Arnaud had vanished. Perhaps he had realized that arguing with Darien futile in his current condition. Arnaud was the one person who could make him feel as if the madness had already taken over. The man brought out every ounce of his hate and anger.  He wished he'd had just one more chance to remove that smug, confident smile from de Fohn's face.

That brought a hint of a smile to Darien's cold lips. As his darker emotions began to emerge, released by the quicksilver, his imagination pondered a hundred myriad ways he could kill the Swiss bastard. Exacting his revenge, even just inside his own mind, brought little warmth to his chilled body.

Gradually Darien allowed his eyes to drift shut again as shivers once again wracked his body. He might have been at least somewhat resigned to the inevitable, but his body had its own set of rules and plans as it did its lonely best to keep him alive.

"Fawkes, you idiot, get up," Hobbes shouted at him from somewhere nearby.

Darien opened his eyes again and saw his partner, dressed to the nines as always, striding toward him.

 _Go 'way Hobbes. I'm fine_ , he mentally muttered.

"No can do, partner. The Fat Man would have my hide if I just let you give up that easily."  He crouched down beside Darien. "You wouldn't want me to lose my job, now would you?"  The attempt at a joke was half-hearted at best.

 _Give up? Too late partner._   Giving up was always the easy part. What would be the use in fighting?  What did he have that was worth fighting for? Hobbes just wanted him to keep the Official happy, serve his country, do his duty. Claire only wanted him as a lab rat, an interesting problem to study. The Official just wanted a tool, a receptacle.

How long had it been since anyone had wanted him just for himself?  Casey might have, but the man she'd loved had been a lie. Liz had only wanted him for his skills as a thief.  His aunt and uncle, if truth be told, probably hadn't wanted him at all.   Kevin had wanted a test subject.  Even Jessica, bless her innocent heart, had wanted Ralph, not Darien.

And now?  Arnaud, the Chinese, the CIA, bad guys of every stripe--they all wanted the gland, but most couldn't care less if Darien Fawkes was still attached to it.

Would he ever get what he wanted?  He could see his chances of a normal life fading with every shot of counteragent, with every day that went by with no solution in sight.  Endless years of torment and loneliness stretched before him, in a virtual prison as confining as any built of concrete and steel.  Death, from that perspective, could seem a welcome release.

Hobbes got to his feet. "Fawkes, I know you feel that way now. Like there is nothing left for you, but you're wrong."

Darien shook his head, or thought he did. He wasn't actually capable of movement anymore.  _Doesn't matter Bobby. Everyone may 'want' me, but no one cares_.

Hobbes began to fade to his sight. "You're wrong there, my friend. Dead wrong."  The words were ghostly, as if spoken from the bottom of a well.

Dead. Interesting choice of words.

The rain had faded into a light drizzle and the sky to the east was starting to brighten as dawn approached.  He had stopped shivering again.  The pain was gone for the moment.  Closing his eyes, Darien drifted back into unconsciousness. 

An hour later, when the last segment of the tattoo flashed red, the still form curled under the leaves twitched once, but no more.


	6. Choosing Life

"What do you mean, you 'found him'?"  Bobby asked Claire warily.

Claire tried to catch her breath.  "I've got a signal from the tracker.  We need..."

"Whoa, whoa, slow down a second there, Keepy...what tracker?  Fawkes doesn't carry a tracker.  They tried placing them on him for weeks when he first started, but he kept finding them and flushing them.  I think they gave up because it was costing too much."

"Um...not exactly.  There is a device, one Darien doesn't know about and can't remove.  It's part of his quicksilver monitor, in his arm."  Claire looked a bit sheepish at this admission.  "It was the Official's call.  In the beginning, he was worried that Darien would run off, so when I proposed the idea of the monitor, he asked me to add a homing beacon to it.  This device," she indicated the gizmo she'd been fiddling with earlier, "is set to receive the specific frequency and analyze it.  It gives both direction and approximate distance."  
  
"And how come I didn't know about this?  You know how many times I could'a used that thing?  Especially back when he ran off with his old pal Liz.  It would'a saved us all a lot of grief."

Claire shook her head.  "It doesn't work like that.  There were some serious power limitations to placing the tracker internally.  The monitor itself is mostly passive and needs almost no electricity; what little it does need it gets from Darien's own body.  But a transmitter, in order to have any useful range, needs quite a bit of power.  With the external trackers, we simply replace them when they run down, but I couldn't be cutting Darien's arm open every few days to change the batteries.  To conserve power, the tracker is only triggered when his quicksilver monitor is completely full.  The Official wasn't too happy with that, but it was better than nothing."

"So, you've got a signal now.  That means he's still alive, but..."

"He just reached quicksilver madness, yes."

"Crap."  Bobby scrubbed a hand across his face and then up over his bare scalp.  After a moment, though, he shook it off and got back to business.  "We gotta go find him."

Claire nodded.  "Sheriff Pizzetti radioed the search-and-rescue teams we had standing by; they're going to meet us on the road where Darien and Rose's escape vehicle got wrecked.  We'll have to go in on horseback, but we've also got a helicopter evac crew standing by; when we find Darien, we'll probably need to get him to a hospital fast.  I just hope there's somewhere to land it nearby when we get there."

"Uh, Keepy, about that hospital...." Hobbes began.

"Bobby, I know the rules.  I'm just planning to pretend I've forgotten.  I'll deal with the consequences later."

"Gotcha."  Under other circumstances, Bobby Hobbes might have been shocked at the idea of breaking the rules like this, but his partner's life was at stake here.  And Bobby Hobbes wouldn't bail on his partner.

 

As the clock wound towards noon, Hobbes, Claire, Pizzetti, and several members of the local volunteer search-and-rescue team were finally approaching the area where Claire's instrument told them Darien should be.  Bobby was trying desperately not to complain about how badly his butt hurt; he hadn't ridden a horse since he was twelve and then never for this long at a stretch.  Fortunately, the mount he'd been provided with was fairly placid, and was tolerant of his inexpert handling.

Claire, on the other hand, looked perfectly at home, poised in the saddle like a dressage rider at a show.  Bobby was amazed, as usual.  They tended to think of Claire only in terms of her scientific expertise, but she always managed to have hidden talents ready to fit any situation.

The group paused for a moment at a small creek, to allow the horses to drink and to let Claire take another reading on the tracking device.  At first, the readings were clear; they were getting close.  Then, quite suddenly, the signal vanished.  Claire smacked the receiver, cursing under her breath, fear clenching her gut.

Bobby pulled up next to her.  "What's the problem?" he asked.

"I've lost the signal," she whispered.

"Dead battery, huh?  How far away was the last location you got?"

"About four hundred meters...that direction," Claire pointed straight ahead.

Hobbes turned to the rest of the party.  "OK, ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna have to search the old-fashioned way, now.  We're within a quarter of a mile, give or take a bit.  Do what you do best.  Let's go find him."  Everyone nodded in understanding and agreement.  With a minimum of discussion, the party fanned out to cover more ground and started away in full search mode. 

Claire hung back a bit, letting them do their jobs, though she feared it might be too late.  She hadn't had the heart to tell Bobby her fear.  He'd just assumed the battery in Darien's tracker had finally run out.  It was a possible explanation, but Claire knew it was unlikely.  The loss of signal had been too abrupt.

She swallowed back tears, hoping like hell she was wrong.

 

He was floating in darkness, relishing the freedom from pain, fear, misery.  He knew he ought to be worried, ought to be doing something, but couldn't find the will.  Floating was easy.

Gradually, so slowly he failed to notice at first, the darkness dissipated into daylight.  Still floating, weightless and enervated, he looked around at the forest, the sky, the earth.  He could see his own body lying curled up under the leaves nearby, as still as death.  Part of his mind wondered curiously about the dislocation.  He tried to look at himself, half-expecting to see a ghostly image floating in midair, but there was nothing to see.  There was no sense of physical form here, no hands or feet, no up or down.

Mind...spirit...ghost...he wasn't sure what he was now, but he suspected, with some amusement, that it was something he hadn't believed in while he was alive.

It was strange how little emotion he felt at the thought of being dead.  Death was supposed to be Man's second-greatest fear, after all, exceeded only by the abject terror of public speaking.  Yet he felt nothing.  Curious....

"Darien..." said a soft voice.  Looking around, he saw no one, but he knew that tone.  The exasperation and mild disappointment were unmistakable.

"Hey, Kev," he greeted his brother cheerfully.  "I was wondering when you'd get around to joining my little parade of hallucinations."

"Darien, you're not dead.  Not yet."

Darien looked back down at the half-hidden figure on the ground.  "Really?  Hard to tell from this angle."

"You're dying, it's true, but they'll be here soon.  They'll try to save you, and it might just work, but only with your help."

"My help?  What the hell can I do?  I'm not even in there anymore."

"That's because you've given up.  If you're willing to fight, and if your friends come through for you, you might have a chance."

Looking down at the pathetic figure below him, Darien thought about that.  Despite what his brother was saying, he could still see no signs of life.  "I dunno, Kevin.  I'm not exactly eager to die, but what's the use in fighting it?  No one's going to miss me.  There are lots of worse ways to go..."

"But lots of better _times_.  You know what I would have given for this chance you've got?  For another day, another week, another year?"

If he'd still had eyes and a throat, Darien would have closed them and swallowed in grief and shame.  "And I'd give anything if I could trade places with you.  You had so much more to give to the world than I..."

"Maybe that was true, once upon a time, but not anymore.  You can still do a lot of good with your life.  Why don't you want to go back?"

"Kev, what have I got worth going back _for_?" Now the exasperation was his.  "All I ever wanted out of life was money, fun, and freedom.  What I've got is a paltry government paycheck, a job that's nine parts boredom and one part terror, and a tight leash called 'counteragent' holding me hostage to the whims of a penny-pinching bastard and his precious Agency.  It's half a step above outright slavery, and I haven't seen any signs of emancipation in my future."

"Darien, I know the gland hasn't made things easy, and I'm sorry.  I never intended..."

"It's okay, Kev, I don't blame you.  Your dream was a good one.  I blame Arnaud; he's the one who corrupted your dream and destroyed my life."

Kevin continued, all but ignoring the interruption.  "But aside from that, I think you're fooling yourself, Darien.  You're not really as selfish and self-centered as you pretend to be.  If you were, you wouldn't be in this mess.  If money and fun were all you wanted, then why would you risk your life to help a total stranger?"

Darien was silent, unable to formulate a response. He heard what sounded like a horse whinnying in the distance, but dismissed it.  What would a horse be doing out here, after all?

Kevin went on.  "There was a reason I trusted you with my dream, Darien.  Underneath your rebellious nature and your casual attitude towards the law, you have always had a solid core of integrity and compassion.  Invisibility, in the hands of some, would be used to kill and destroy.  You know this; you saw it clearly when you faced down that bastard Lawson.

"Invisibility is power, Darien, and power corrupts.  I never expected you to be immune to the temptations it offered.  I'm not sure _anyone_ would be. I knew you'd occasionally give in to it, as you did when your friend Liz showed up. But I also knew your weaknesses, and they were ones I could live with.  Your temptations are money and adventure, not power or pain. A little petty larceny is a small risk, compared to what others might be tempted to do.  The gland has the potential for great good or great evil; on the whole, I trusted that you would usually do the right thing.  Used correctly, the gland could be a wonderful gift."

"Gift?  Kevin, do you have any idea what this 'gift' of yours has cost me?  Everything!  Everything I ever loved, I've lost because of this freaking gland.  First I lost you. Then I lost Casey. I had to give up Liz.  It's cost me my sanity and my self-respect more times than I care to count, thanks to Arnaud's little add-ons.  I'm sick of it.  I'm tired of losing."

 

Bobby Hobbes leaned down close to the horse's neck to avoid some low-hanging branches as they broke through a wall of brush and out into an open field.  Keeping half an eye on his compass heading, he scanned the clearing for any sign of his wayward partner.  Thanks to a night of rain, there were no tracks to follow, no clues to spot.

"Fawkes!" he called out, and in the distance, he could hear the other searchers shouting as well.  He didn't really expect an answer, though.  He'd seen Claire's face when the signal from the tracker faded out, knew what it probably meant, but part of him wouldn't accept it.  After coming so far, surviving so much, Darien Fawkes could not go out like this.

Rain...there was a thought there, dancing on the edge of his mind.  It was raining last night...Fawkes would have looked for shelter, somewhere to stay dry.  They needed to be looking _under_ things.

Hobbes was about to lift his radio and pass on the suggestion to the others when he spotted a fallen tree and its ripped-out root structure.  Suddenly, illogically, he knew.  With a click of his tongue and a squeeze of his sore legs, he urged his mount across the field

The moment he saw the muddy, huddled form under the overhanging roots, Hobbes called for Claire and the others over the radio, urging them to hurry.  He quickly dismounted, and just as quickly collapsed to the ground as his weary legs refused to support him.  Half stumbling, half crawling, Bobby rushed to Darien's side, shouting his name, and felt for a pulse.

The skin was cold, tinged with blue.  He could see no movement, no sign of respiration.  Nothing stirred beneath his fingers.

For a long moment, Bobby sat there, stunned.  Too late.  Too freaking late because the freaking FBI wanted their "element of surprise."  Why did he agree to delay?  They should have been out here at dawn, he should have insisted, it was all his fault...

 

Darien heard Hobbes call his name from across the clearing and watched as he approached.  _Hell of a tracking job, Bobby,_ he thought.  _Considering I told hardly anyone in San Diego where I was going, and only one person up here could have told you where to look._   He presumed this was a good sign, that Rose had made it home alive and well.  At least one of them had.  That was enough.

He watched, almost bemused, as Bobby staggered over to his body and felt for a pulse.  He wasn't really surprised that Hobbes seemed unable to find one -- in spite of what his hallucination was telling him, that guy down there sure _looked_ dead.

What did shock him was Bobby's reaction.  He didn't know what he'd expected; maybe some loud cussing, some expression of disappointment.  He hadn't anticipated tears.

Hobbes was sprawled awkwardly on the ground, one hand lying gently on Darien's shoulder, staring at his still face with streams of tears running down his own.  He started speaking with quiet intensity, and Darien had to draw closer to hear his words.

"Dammit, Fawkes," Hobbes muttered, "it shouldn't have ended like this.  Lots of stuff I wish I'd gotten to tell you.  Like, you're the best friend I've ever had.  The only _real_ friend I've had in a very long time.  Everyone else I've ever known has had a hidden agenda, ulterior motives." 

Hobbes shook his head and wiped tears from his face, but more quickly fell to replace them.  "Not you, kid.  Everything was out in the open with you.  You wanted out, and you didn't care if we knew it. 

"I didn't like you much in the beginning, you know.  Punk kid, no training, attitude the size of an aircraft carrier. Dismissed everything I valued as unimportant.  I didn't want you any more than you wanted me when they threw us together.

"After a while, though, I found out something about you.  Much as you might bitch and moan about the unfairness of life and looking out for number one, I discovered I could actually count on you.  When the chips were down, you came through, every time.  I have never, in all my years, had a partner I actually learned to trust, until you."

Bobby fell silent then, having run out of words, but remained sitting by Darien's body.  Darien's disembodied mind was stunned. 

He looked at his partner, and it was as if he were seeing the man for the first time. Those words had struck a resonant chord somewhere inside him.  Darien realized he'd spent these last months focussing completely on his own problems, his own messed-up life, and had failed to see Bobby Hobbes in any context but as part of the Agency.  Sure, he liked Bobby, hung out with him, joked with him, but he'd never really managed to _see_ him as anything more than Darien Fawkes' trainer, just as Claire was his keeper.  Just another link in the chain that held him prisoner.

Darien realized, with a start, that every one of Bobby Hobbes' emotional words could just as honestly have come from his own lips in return.  Bobby was a friend, now; Darien's best and probably only real friend in the world. 

Thieves, as a rule, don't have friends.  Acquaintances, yes, perhaps even partners, but always with an undercurrent of distrust and a potential for betrayal.  He'd learned that lesson the hard way, first from Liz Morgan and then from Manny Merrick.  Bobby Hobbes was, truly, the first person in his life that Darien felt he could really trust.

 

Lost in thought, Hobbes didn't hear Claire approaching until she was almost on top of him.  He hastily wiped his face, then looked up as she dismounted gracefully.  "We're too late," he said gently.  "He's gone."

Claire pulled a stethoscope and thermometer from a saddlebag and rushed over to Darien's side, ignoring Hobbes' amateur diagnosis.  "Don't give up just yet, Bobby.  Hypothermia can fool you."  Pulling aside as little of Darien's shirt as possible, she placed the diaphragm of the stethoscope against his chest and listened, eyes closed, for a full minute. 

When she looked up again, Hobbes could see both worry and hope warring in her face.  "He's alive, just barely.  Pulse is extremely slow and very weak; you'd never feel it with your fingers.  He's barely breathing, and his temperature is..."  She placed the sensor of the thermometer in Darien's ear and waited for the beep.  "Damn, he's down to 85.  Not good." 

She got up quickly and moved back to her saddlebags.  "Bobby," she called over her shoulder, "please call the helicopter we've got on standby.  They can land in this clearing, I think it's large enough.  We need to get Darien out of here and to a hospital as fast as possible."

While Hobbes called for help, Claire set up the device she had requested from the hospital the night before.  Knowing about the weather conditions and Darien's injuries, she had anticipated this situation.  The device was a small, portable, battery-powered ventilator, designed to provide warmed and humidified air to a hypothermic patient.  Even better than mouth-to-mouth, which would have been the next best option in the absence of this gadget, it would stabilize and perhaps even slightly improve Darien's core temperature while they waited, without throwing his system into shock.

Once the ventilator was set up and functioning, she pulled off her coat and gently wrapped it around Darien's head.  When Hobbes was done calling for help, he provided his own coat for a blanket.  Having done as much as she could for the hypothermia, Claire took at brief look at Darien's injured shoulder.  He'd obviously lost a lot of blood, but for the moment the gunshot wound was the least of their worries.  It would need to be dealt with at some point, but it was no longer bleeding and therefore wasn't immediately life-threatening.

As the two agents finally sat back to wait for the helicopter, having done all they could, Bobby's cell phone rang.  Instinctively, he reached for it, but Claire stopped him.  "Bobby, don't answer that," she pleaded.  "He'll want to know what's going on, and if you tell him, he might give me an order that I couldn't follow in good conscience.  If I never hear it, then I won't be disobeying." 

Bobby looked pained for a moment, caught between loyalties, but then he looked down at his unconscious partner and nodded, dropping his hand.  The phone rang persistently for nearly a minute, then stopped.  "You really think the Fat Man would try and keep us from getting Fawkes to a hospital?" he asked her.

"Going to a hospital _is_ a security risk, and you know how the Official feels about security around the I-Man Project.  Tests will have to be run, samples taken...someone might notice the anomalies in Darien's bloodstream.  The Official _could_ forbid us to take the risk, even if it cost Darien his life.  I don't know if he would, but I don't want to risk finding out the answer right now."

"Hmm.  Hey, what about the counteragent?  Shouldn't you give him his shot?  He's technically been QSM for hours now."

"Bobby, I wish I could," she whispered worriedly, looking over at her patient.  "I don't know how long it will take before he hits stage 5, especially in this condition."  Bobby looked momentarily confused at the 'stage 5', but decided to let it pass.  He'd ask for a translation of that some other time. 

Claire continued talking, almost to herself.  "Every minute I delay is a risk, but the quicksilver madness is probably the only thing keeping him alive right now.  The madness spikes his adrenaline, raises his temperature, stimulates every system in his body.  If I gave him the counteragent now, all that would collapse and he'd probably die.  He's on the ragged edge as it is.  I have to wait until we get him in the hospital and get him stabilized.  I only hope it won't be too late."

In the distance, they heard the sound of a helicopter approaching.  Rescue was at hand.

 

Darien had been just as shocked as Bobby when Claire announced that he wasn't dead.  He watched and listened as they worked to save him, feeling emotions he'd never expected.  If he'd been surprised at the depth of Hobbes' loyalty and feeling, the revelations about Claire just floored him.  He'd always assumed she didn't really care about him as a person, only as a scientific subject.  Even when she'd cried so passionately at Bobby's fake funeral, he hadn't really allowed himself to think that she might also have feelings about him.  Yet there they sat, both of them, willfully violating any number of rules and Agency policies, risking censure or worse, just to see to it that he had a chance at survival.

"You see, Darien?" said Kevin's voice, reappearing just as suddenly as it had vanished.  "It may not make up for all that you lost, but it looks like there might just be something in this new life of yours worth fighting for.  Knowing what they're risking for your sake, can you do any less for them?  Can you risk living, risk hoping that someday things will work out for the best?"

Darien gazed long and hard at the faces of his...friends.  Yes, friends, both of them.

Gently at first, then with greater force, Darien felt himself being dragged down, back towards the body lying wrapped up and ready for transport.  His decision had been made without him being consciously aware of it, and now his life was reclaiming him even as he reclaimed it.

His vision fading, he saw the helicopter land in the clearing and a number of people rush towards him.  With open arms, he embraced the darkness, vowing to fight with all his strength for a return to the light.


	7. Epilogue

Darkness and silence -- an eternity or an instant, there was no way to judge.  His first awareness was of  sound in the distance, as if heard from under water, with no sense or meaning.  Gradually, the noises differentiated into mechanical beeps and human voices.  He focused on the voices, latching onto the familiar sounds and dragging himself to the surface inch by inch.

He wanted to open his eyes, try and connect the here and now to the chaotic jumble of memories.  Flashes and images without connection or comprehension.  Trees.  A grocery cart.  Standing in a dark room, with a gun in his hands.  Sitting on a beach.  A girl, tied to a bed, staring at him in terror.  Lying on the ground, pain searing through his shoulder.  He saw all of this in flashes, but with no sense of connection between the images.

Quicksilver madness.  It had to be; it explained both his disjointed memories and his current state of semi-consciousness.  _Please, God,_ he thought, _tell me I didn't hurt anyone..._

After a while, the voices grew nearer and he began to recognize words. Echoes from his memory combined with the ambient sounds.

"Claire, are you sure he's gonna be ok?"  _You're wrong there, my friend._  "Shouldn't he be awake by now?" _Dead wrong._ The voices in his head and in his ears melded together until he couldn't be sure which was real.

"He'll wake up when he's ready, Bobby."  That voice, too, conjured up whispers in his memory, almost as if from a dream. _He's alive, just barely._ "Between the hypothermia, the bullet we took out of his shoulder, the infection he got in the wound, and the advanced state of quicksilver madness he reached before I could give him the counteragent, Darien's body has been through quite a lot...he needs time to recover."  _If I never hear it, then I won't be disobeying._   "Just keep talking to him.  I don't know that he'll hear you, but it'll give you something to do besides worry and obsess and pester me."

As if the words were a magic spell, he felt his eyelids twitch open, flooding his vision with blinding light.  Squeezing them shut again, he let out a small noise, almost a whimper.

"Darien?" Claire called out quietly, alerted by the sound.  He felt a familiar, feminine hand grasp his.

"Mmph," was all the response he could muster.  He cracked his eyelids open again warily; the room still seemed over-bright, but it was no longer painful. The sun was shining in the nearby windows, warming the room quite pleasantly.  The room itself was unfamiliar.  Without moving his head, Darien could see several plastic IV bags hanging over his head, with tubes presumably attached to his body at various points.  His shoulder registered a dull, burning hurt, but the pain was distant, unconnected somehow.

"Hey, Fawkes," Bobby said from somewhere on his other side.  "Welcome back, kid."

"Wha' happ'?" Darien muttered groggily.

"You're in the hospital, Darien," Claire began gently.

Darien interrupted before she could explain further.  "Did I hurt anyone?" he asked desperately, sounding more awake by the second.

"Hurt?" Claire echoed, confused.  She looked across at Hobbes.

"He must think he went quicksilver mad and went on a rampage.  After all, that's the usual reason when he wakes up like this, with us hovering over him.  Fawkes, you didn't hurt anyone.  You took a bullet in the shoulder and got a bit chilled, that's all.  In fact, you saved a girl's life.  Don't you remember that?"

"Girl..."  Darien tried to wade through the fog of recent memories.  Bits and pieces, nothing coherent, until suddenly a vision surfaced.  Hobbes, crouched beside him, crying, speaking words about friendship and trust.  The memory seemed both unreal and incredibly powerful at the same time.  "I...."  He fumbled for words.

Claire gripped his hand and gave it a comforting squeeze.  "Relax, Darien.  The memories will come back.  Your body's been through a rough few days.  All you need to know right now is that everything is fine.  The girl is back home with her mother, and the men who took her are in custody.  Now get some rest; that's what you need most right now."

Darien nodded in wordless acquiescence .  Claire released his hand and, with a final reassuring pat, turned to leave the room.  As the door swung shut behind her, Darien shifted his eyes back to Hobbes, who was still sitting in a cheap plastic hospital chair near the foot of the bed.

"You want I should go, too, and let you get some shut-eye?" he asked.

Darien didn't answer, just gazed at his partner for a moment in silence.  "You saved me," he finally said drowsily -- a statement, not a question.

Hobbes' jaw dropped, as he realized somehow that Darien really meant him personally, not the searchers in general. And maybe something even more than that, something deeper than mere physical rescue.

There was no way he could know that....  Before he could respond to the half-mumbled yet entirely accurate comment, however, Fawkes was sound asleep.

 

A week later, his arm in a sling to support his healing shoulder, Darien Fawkes sat on a bench and leaned against the wall of his uncle's cabin, watching in weary bemusement as Claire and Hobbes fluttered around in the primitive kitchen area preparing the mother of all indoor picnics.  His aunt Celia was sitting across the table from him, laughing at his friends' antics and offering the occasional embarrassing anecdote about Darien's childhood.

Darien just took it all in, enjoying the familial atmosphere.  Outside the windows, a light dusting of snow covered the ground.  By this time tomorrow, he would be back in San Diego where the weather was still warm, sitting in the Official's office with Hobbes and Claire while they all got lectured for every infraction, real and imagined, that his boss could think of.  For that reason, if nothing else, he was determined to enjoy these last few hours of peace and tranquility.

The sound of tires rolling up the gravel drive outside caught everyone's attention.  Bobby moved cautiously over to the door and peered out.  Almost instantly, however, he relaxed and threw the door open to welcome the visitors.

Darien could hear people approaching, muffled voices answering Hobbes' greetings, but it wasn't until the two new arrivals walked in the door that he recognized them.  One was John Pizzetti, dressed casually in civvies for once.  "Pizza!" he called out.  "Glad you could drop by!"

"Hey Fawkes," Pizza said.  "Good to see you up and around again, you looked like hell last time I saw you."

Darien was about to make a smart-ass reply to that, but was cut off as the second new arrival stepped inside the door.  The moment she laid eyes on him, she squealed, "Darien!" and dashed across the room like a whirlwind.  Somehow, in spite of her enthusiasm, Rose managed to throw her arms around her hero in a way that didn't hurt his still-tender shoulder, although it did almost knock the breath out of him.

"Hi Rose," he whispered in a strangled voice, surreptitiously spitting out some of her hair that got in his mouth.

"I had to bring her, Fawkes," Pizza said from across the room.  "They wouldn't let her come visit you in the hospital for some reason, so she begged and pleaded with me to track you down and let her thank you in person."

The girl finally released him from her choke hold.  "I'm so glad you're all right, Darien, I was so worried when I got back and no one had heard from you and you were up there all alone and hurt and it started to rain..."  Rose's babbling continued for several minutes in that vein, expressing gratitude and relief in equal measure and recounting her own experiences with the woods, the hospital, and the curiosity of the media in incredibly long run-on sentences.  

Thanks to some judicious words from Bobby Hobbes before they left, Rose had not revealed the identity of her rescuer to anyone but the police and FBI.  The news hounds had been going wild for the past week, trying to track down her mysterious savior, but with no luck.   Some of the more spiritual commentators were attributing everything to a "guardian angel".  Amazingly, news of the search and rescue effort for Darien Fawkes had not leaked out to any of the networks or papers, so no one had made the connection.

The rest of the afternoon was a pleasant interlude of camaraderie and laughter.  Bobby Hobbes, king of the calzone, soon chased the Keeper out of the kitchen.  She might make a mean counteragent, he teased, but she couldn't boil water.  He then recruited Rose as his assistant, much to the amusement of the rest.  Claire -- who actually was a fairly good cook -- understood that her expulsion was simply a ruse perpetrated for that very purpose, to get the girl busy and concentrating on something besides smothering Darien in adolescent adoration.

Darien understood too, and flashed a very grateful look in Hobbes' direction.

After the meal, which was roundly praised by all the participants, Pizzetti and Claire took up the task of distracting Rose by taking her outside to build a snow man.  Celia was dozing in a chair in the corner, leaving Darien and Bobby essentially alone.  They both sat silently for a long time, sipping coffee and watching the revelry outside through the windows.

Finally, Bobby broke the silence.  "Fawkes...back a few days, when you first woke up in the hospital...you said something to me.  I've been meaning to ask you about it--"

Darien looked down into his coffee cup, uncomfortable.  "It was nothing, Hobbes.  I was all mixed up from the drugs and stuff, didn't know what I was saying."

Hobbes snorted derisively.  "Don't give me that crap, Fawkes.  Bobby Hobbes knows from confused, my friend, and that was not what I was hearing.  Whatever else it was, you knew what you were saying.  I just want to know what you meant by it."

Darien was silent for several moments, gazing longingly out the window.  Just as Bobby was becoming convinced he wasn't going to answer, he spoke up in a muted, almost dreamy voice.  "Saw some strange things while I was out there, Hobbes.  Keep tells me that hallucinations are a common side-effect of severe hypothermia, and I suppose that's all they were.  I saw Arnaud, taunting me.  And you, urging me to keep going.  I remember talking to Kevin, and seeing you ride to my rescue on a white horse.  Well, actually, it was a gray horse, but same difference." 

Hobbes was staring at him intently, eyes narrowed at that last comment.

"It's all jumbled up in my mind, even now, and I know none of it was real, but I did know I was dying out there.  And at first...I didn't much care."  Darien glanced over at his friend to gauge the reaction to that statement, but Hobbes' face was unreadable.  "I've had the gland and this job for months now, Hobbes, and they both still scare the shit out of me.  I mean, it's been even money whether I was going to get my head blown off during a mission or die of gland removal either at the hands of the Agency, Arnaud, or somebody like the Chinese.  But out there in the woods...it was peaceful, and I could be satisfied that I'd gone out doing something good.  And it was a relief to think that the gland would die with me, because as much as I want it gone, I also don't want anyone else to have to go through what I have."

Hobbes murmured, "And you say you saw me on a horse?"

Fawkes grinned sheepishly.  "Yeah.  Weird, I know, but what can I say, my imagination has always been a bit twisted.   I mean, hell, I was hearing Kevin at that point, clear as I'm hearing you, that's how far gone I was.  Anyway, Kevin said some stuff, and you said some stuff, and hallucination or no, it got me thinking that there might be something worth fighting to live for after all.

"Don't get me wrong; the good doesn't outweigh the bad, not by a long shot.  I think I'd give almost anything to get this gland out of my head and get my life back on my own terms.  But it was strange to realize that there actually is something in my life that doesn't suck."

"And what's that, Fawkes?" Hobbes asked.  "The regular paycheck?"  Bobby tried to joke around like usual, to cover the fact that Fawkes' 'hallucination' had been far too accurate to be dismissed.  He had been on a horse when he found Darien, and the horse had, in fact, been gray.  And yet, Darien had been unconscious, bare millimeters from death at that point.  There was no way he could have known that.  Was there?

Darien smiled ruefully.  "No, that pretty much sucks, too.  I've had odd jobs that paid better than this.  No, the one and only good thing this frickin' gland has given me is a real friend."

Hobbes searched his partner's face, looking for the punchline, but Darien gazed back at him with utter seriousness.

Darien continued in a soft, sincere tone.  "It took me a while to realize it.  I didn't much like you at first, thought you were this crazy, gung-ho government robot whose only purpose in life was to keep me from having any fun.  And I'm sure you weren't any fonder of me at first, with my attitude and lack of training.  But sometime in the past few months, that changed. 

"I've had partners before, Hobbes.  You remember Liz Morgan, and there were others.  But I never really trusted any of them.  They weren't friends; they were tools, extra hands needed for things neither person could do on his own.  Every one of them would have sold me out in a heartbeat if it had been to their advantage.  You learn not to trust, and it's a hard thing to unlearn.  I never had a partner I could trust, until you.  You're my friend, now, probably the only _real_ friend I've had in a very long time."

Hobbes was frozen with shock.  Not so much at the sentiments, but at the words.  They were _his_ words, or close to them, words he'd spoken to what he'd thought at the time was a dead body.

He and Darien both broke away from the intense looks on each others' faces and turned their attention back out to the nearly completed snow man.  Or, to be more accurate, snow dwarf.  There wasn't enough snow on the ground out there to make the thing more than two feet tall.  The scene out there was much safer than the one going on inside.  The words had been said; they'd both said them, and both heard them, but neither of them was quite ready to deal with the implications.  Not yet.

They sat that way for a long time, strained silence, their coffee getting cold in their hands.  Finally, Bobby spoke again.

"That was a slick move out there, Fawkes, with the mooks and their dogs.  Pretending to be a ghost -- priceless."  Hobbes smiled at the memory of the tale he'd heard from that kid, Davey.

Darien grinned in response, grateful for the change in subject and relieved at the break in the tension that had been vibrating between them.  Nothing more needed to be said today.  "Well, just don't tell the Fat Man about that, okay Hobbes?  I don't want him getting any bright ideas."

 

 _The great inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, once said, "When one door_  
closes, another opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon   
the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."  

_It took me a long time to look away from the closed doors of my old life._  
It was a difficult process, one that required years of pain and   
regret, of  loss and discovery.  But the first step -- the most important  
step -- was when I recognized the gift I'd received in the friendship of  
Bobby Hobbes.


End file.
